World Government Summit to discuss sustainability
Experts to explore ways of using technology to balance world’s fragile ecosystems
Dubai: The fourth annual Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Action Forum will explore ways in which technology can be used to balance the world’s increasingly fragile ecosystems at the seventh World Government Summit at Dubai’s Madinat Jumeirah from next Sunday to Tuesday.
UN-ratified SDGs offer a blueprint for organisations and policy-makers across the world. They include 17 objectives, 169 goals and 230 indicators that seek to address the challenges of 836 million people living in poverty, and the waste of more than a third of the world’s food and limited water resources that impact over 40 per cent of the world’s population.
SDGs emphasise the need for an international consensus in protecting human rights and raising living standards to elevate global economic and environmental values.
The UAE’s National Committee on SDGs, formed by the UAE Cabinet in January 2017, which includes 17 federal government entities, has announced that more than 300 officials from federal and local government bodies, private sector leaders, non-profit organisations and academic experts will attend the SDGs in Action Forum.
Furthermore, on February 10, as part of the forum, a high-profile panel will examine the inclusion of youth in the implementation of SDGs throughout the world.
Following the launch of the Youth Council of the Global Agenda 2030 at the UN Data Forum 2018 held in Dubai, 610 candidates applied for membership to the Youth Advisory Board for SDGs. Nearly 76 per cent of the applicants were Emiratis, highlighting the significance the UAE’s youth accords sustainability.
Abdullah Nasser Lootah, director-general of Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, and vice-chair of the UAE’s National Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, said: “In line with the directives of our visionary leadership, the SDG Forum will reflect the importance the UAE government attaches to sustainability, especially given its impact on the global citizen, which is our primary theme of the event this year.
“The Forum will include informative dialogues demonstrating initiatives that have been implemented over the past year and highlighting the efforts carried out in implementing SDGs in the UAE. Also, the forum offers an ideal opportunity to examine national and global best practices and is a unique platform to share knowledge with experts from all over the world with the objective of reviewing the progress in implementing SDGs globally.”